Category Archives: Other Baseball

Is this really happening again?

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Join in the new debate: “Should the Mets claim Manny Ramirez?”

No. Thanks for joining us on another edition of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

– Billy Pilgrim, comments section here.

First of all: So it goes.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’ll point out that it’s not a stupid answer. Or really even that stupid of a question, just kind of an irritating one. If the Mets were really anywhere close to contention and shouldering Jeff Francoeur’s “offense” in a corner outfield spot, with Jason Bay looking more and more like he won’t be back this seaosn, then yeah, it’d be worth at least considering picking up Manny, his outstanding bat, and all the significantly less outstanding things that go along with them.

But it’s not going to happen, so it’s not really even a conversation worth having. No way the Mets are going to take on the salary or the headache. Would I rather see Manny man a corner outfield spot for the Mets the rest of the way than Francoeur? Yes. But I’d also rather see Lucas Duda, Nick Evans, Chris Carter or our summer intern Adam, and all those guys might actually offer the club something in the future.

During the Bob Ojeda chat last night, some guy kept asking if the Mets should or would get Manny. I was moderating and I didn’t put the question through. I could have, I guess, but there were many more interesting questions — I try to avoid the transaction questions — and I didn’t want to open up the whole can of Manny nonsense.

The guy kept going, though, and kept getting progressively angrier, eventually naming Jeff Wilpon as the man responsible for his question not being put through to Ojeda.

If he could have seen the real-life chat environs, he would have witnessed me and Bob Ojeda sitting in the SNY Newsroom, in the bowels below the SNY studio, chatting with Gary Apple and a couple of show producers and watching the game. Bob ate nachos as I fired questions at him and transcribed. It’s about the least conspiratorial process imaginable.

Well here’s what I don’t understand

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That said, his decision to stay with the Tigers is downright idiotic . . . or there is some larger force at work.

I keep playing this out in my head, and none of it makes any sense. Why would Damon want to stay with the moribund Tigers when he had a chance to join the Red Sox for 5 1/2 weeks of stretch-run fun? Why try to keep hitting at cavernous Comerica Park when he could return to friendly Fenway? Why play games that don’t matter when you can play games that still matter?

– Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe.

There are a lot of things about Dan Shaughnessy that don’t make sense to me, but one thing I’ve never understood is questioning a player’s motivations when he is unwilling to waive his no-trade clause.

He has a no-trade clause! There’s got to be a reason he got it put in there and if I had to take a guess, I’d bet it’s because he doesn’t want to be traded.

And look, you can say whatever you want about Johnny Damon’s desire to win or whatever just like I can go to my grave maintaining that he’s a huge sellout just for shaving the beard and going to the Yankees after 2004, even if I understand full well that baseball’s a business and he was just doing well by his family and everything. That’s all within our rights as fans.

I have no inside information or anything, but I’d bet Johnny Damon probably didn’t waive his no-trade clause because being traded is a huge pain in the ass and something he doesn’t want to deal with at this point in his career.

Hat tip to Can’t Stop the Bleeding.

Awesome article on Japanese baseball

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Nomura, who is 75 years old and has managed for 24 years, is known as an astute baseball mind but is also associated with outdated ideas such as distracting opposing players by yelling through a megaphone and arguing against announcing starting pitchers in advance because it eliminates guesswork for opponents.

- Brad Lefton, New York Times.

OK, first of all, let me go on record as saying I’d do a lot less complaining about Jerry Manuel if he’d only pick up the ol’ megaphone to distract Shane Victorino every once in a while. I can’t believe that’s going out of style in Japan.

I love reading about the various local particulars of baseball in foreign lands. This article is awesome for that. Turns out Japanese baseball players consider fielding a ball backhanded taboo. Who knew?

Though it is not stated in the article, I have also been told that sacrifice bunting is much more prevalent in Japan — even among a team’s power hitters. And the person who explained it to me — a smart and respected baseball analyst — presented it as cultural: fear of failure runs so strong in Japanese culture that productive outs (ie not failing) are preferred to the risk of strikeouts or double plays.

I have no idea if that’s true or racist or anything, but I’m certain it’s fascinating. And I’d love to study baseball all over the globe to examine the various intricacies, on the field and around the game, and how they relate to local culture.

Doesn’t that sound like an awesome book? Plus you could catch up with baseball globetrotters like Jason Rees, an Australian fellow who played college ball in Kansas, then professionally in Israel and the Netherlands.

So in conclusion: Please someone give me a massive advance and I will gladly write the crap out of that book. And yeah, I realize that there’s no built-in market for something like that, and that it would be really expensive to fly me all around the world and put me up in posh accommodations (I have Champagne tastes, I should note), and that print is more or less dead. But you might as well go out with a bang.

Albert Pujols is pretty much going to win the Triple Crown

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Is it me or has there been more Triple Crown talk this year than in the recent past? I heard rumblings earlier about the Triple Crown pursuits of Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Gonzalez.

It’s a novelty achievement, obviously, but nonetheless one that requires a pretty excellent season.

And now it’s pretty clear to me that Albert Pujols is going to win the Triple Crown.

All of a sudden, El Hombre is leading the National League in home runs and RBIs. He is only .007 off the batting-average lead currently held by Joey Votto, a difference Pujols could close in an evening if the opposing pitcher angers him somehow.

Oh, and the funniest part about that? This is actually one of Pujols’ worst seasons of his career.

Certainly, with three men ahead of Pujols in the batting average race and plenty in the mix in the other categories, the odds are against him. But bet against Albert Pujols at your own peril.

A little clarification

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So reports about our forthcoming web series involving old clips of Kiner’s Korner are blowing up the Internet, but I’ve seen a bunch of people extrapolating the reports in all sorts of different ways so I figured I’d clarify:

The series, which I’m very excited about, does indeed include clips from the original Kiner’s Korner. But the original clips will only make up a short portion of each “episode.” The rest will be Ralph reflecting back on that clip, with me sitting next to him like a slack-jawed goon.

We used every scrap of original footage we could find for the shows, but there’s really not much of it out there — we are by no means re-airing entire original episodes of Kiner’s Korner, as I’ve seen a couple of blogs suggest. We would if we could, but those have been, sadly, presumably long since been taped over by now-defunct networks of yesteryear.

Ralph is awesome. He has an unbelievable take on the game, a remarkable memory and a lifetime full of incredible baseball anecdotes, so the show will be worth watching. This is the culmination of the awesomeness I wrote about a few months ago, and hanging out with Ralph for these videos was, like I said, completely amazing.